Woodland Park Zoo supports grizzly bear restoration in Washington state. You should too. And you don’t even need to put down whatever device you are on right now to make your stance known.

Let us make the case. It starts right here with two of Washington’s most well-known grizzlies. It’s no surprise Woodland Park Zoo’s grizzly bear brothers, Keema and Denali, are among the most popular animals at the zoo. With their fuzzy ears, lumbering stroll and impressive swimming (OK, more like floating and bobbing) skills, they’re hard not to love.

Despite their lovability, history has not been kind to grizzly bears in Washington state. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, new settlers to Washington killed thousands of grizzly bears, significantly reducing or eliminating populations. Today, fewer than 10 grizzlies exist in Washington’s North Cascades Ecosystem…and really, it’s probably more like one or two. In fact, a grizzly hasn’t been spotted in the North Cascades for 21 years.

We can reverse the grizzly bear’s history in Washington. The National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and several other federal and state agencies are evaluating ways to restore the grizzly population in the North Cascades. They’ve released a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) analyzing several options that include translocating bears from other regions into Washington.

Woodland Park Zoo supports North Cascades grizzly bear recovery and this process. Here are three reasons you can add to your public comment in support of grizzly recovery:

1.Grizzly bears are vital to ecosystem health

The North Cascades are a beautiful and pristine wildland, but are missing one key element: grizzly bears. Misunderstood as voracious predators, grizzly bears are actually semi-reclusive, very smart omnivores. In fact, 80% of a grizzly’s diet is berries, green plants, roots and insects. This is why grizzlies have such long claws: so they can dig up roots, bulbs, small mammals and bugs. That big hump on their back? That’s a well-developed digging muscle. All this excavating aerates the soil and increases plant diversity to create a lush and healthy environment for many other critters.

2.We already know the (bear) drill

Prepared outdoorspeople already know how to behave in bear country, as we have thousands of black bears living among us in the state. True, grizzlies and black bears have distinct personalities, but bear safety standard operating procedure is the same. Take bear spray when you go into the woods, properly pack and cook your food while camping, and be sure to make lots of noise on a hike.

3.Recovering the grizzly bear is the right thing to do

There are many more reasons why recovering grizzlies to the North Cascades makes sense, but in the end, it’s simply the right thing for us to do. Grizzly bears lived in our state for thousands of years. They are part of our region’s rich heritage. American Indians throughout the Pacific Northwest see grizzly bears as teachers and guides, iconic symbols of strength and survival. Imagine our regional pride when we could boast about the return of the grizzly bear to Washington after near eradication 100 years ago.

Your email about saving the last ten grizzlies is an intentionally misleading lie. They do not exist. There is no breeding population in the Cascades to "restore". What you are talking about is planting grizzlies where there are none. Eventually this will limit the use of the wilderness that we love and enjoy. It will also eventually endanger the public with no perceptible gain of any sort. Individuals who have the romantic desire to hike where they are not the top of the food chain have plenty of options. Go take a hike in Alaska; preferably with some raw salmon dangling from your backs!

The recovery plan absolutely relies on translocating bears, which we state here and which is explored in depth in the video above. While we recognize there are many perspectives on this topic, and that's what the public process is all about, we do want to share this FAQ from the Friends of the North Cascades Grizzly Bear coalition that addresses some of these concerns around the risk of conflict, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service assess as rare - http://www.northcascadesgrizzly.org/faq/

One more reason to add to the already wonderful list provided by Woodland Park Zoo: Grizzly bears can promote tourism and boost the local economy. Parts of Canada and the US have built an entire tourism industry around these magnificent animals, which has created jobs, boosted their local economies, and helped raise funds to support ongoing recovery efforts. To see examples of these programs, which can certainly be replicated in Washington, visit http://www.alaskabeartours.com/ and http://www.greatbeartours.com/ and http://www.hellobc.com/british-columbia/things-to-do/parks-wildlife/bear-watching.aspx